Does NIH select the right healthcare ventures through the SBIR grant program?

Supradeep Dutta (), Jenna Rodrigues () and Timothy B. Folta ()
Additional contact information
Supradeep Dutta: Rutgers University
Jenna Rodrigues: University of Connecticut
Timothy B. Folta: University of Connecticut

The Journal of Technology Transfer, 2023, vol. 48, issue 4, No 3, 1206-1220

Abstract: Abstract One way governments aim to spur entrepreneurship is through providing startup capital to qualified ventures. In the United States, the government does so through federal grant programs like the SBIR/STTR program. Despite the government’s efforts to spur entrepreneurship through capital distribution, we don’t know much about the selection capabilities that government agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have in place to choose qualified ventures for funding. Through exploiting a quasi-natural experiment enabled by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) of 2009, we seek to determine whether the NIH selects ventures with the most innovation and commercialization potential. Overall, our findings suggest that the NIH effectively identifies and prioritizes ventures with superior observable innovation capabilities. Yet, they could do more to discern the underlying tacit value of the innovation to prioritize selecting high-risk ventures that have the potential to create impactful innovation in the future. Our analyses should help policymakers orient their thinking around selection capabilities when assessing the impact of government programs with the broader objective of supporting novel healthcare innovation.

Keywords: Federal grants; Selection effect; NIH, Innovation, Natural Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 L26 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10961-022-09964-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jtecht:v:48:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s10961-022-09964-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/10961/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10961-022-09964-8

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Technology Transfer is currently edited by Albert N. Link, Donald S. Siegel, Barry Bozeman and Simon Mosey

More articles in The Journal of Technology Transfer from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().